Puppy is insane while outside
She is 8-9 months old, shepherd mix
Almost every time you interact with her outside she is chasing you around the yard, jumping at you, scratching and biting your arms/legs and pulling your clothes. She’s a fairly big dog (I think ~50lbs give or take 10lbs), so she’s practically bulldozing you over and nipping with her sharp teeth and it quickly makes any outside playtime literally impossible. If you try to redirect her with a toy she may play with it for a bit, but will return her attention to you. As in, you throw toy, she may grab it but once she brings it back she’s biting you instead. Or she runs over to the toy, doesn’t grab it, and comes to bite you anyway. If you engage with tug of war with her she loves it, but after a few seconds she’ll try to bite your hand instead of the toy.
Sometimes I have to use her toys to block her from me by literally thrusting the toys into her mouth when she lunges at me. She’s overall a destructive dog, loves to dig holes and rip into or chew anything stuff. She practically mauled our apple tree, poor thing. So, any advice on making going into the backyard not a battle to the death would be appreciative. If one is in with her long enough just sitting on the deck not doing anything she will eventually chill out. Just walking out onto the porch is like inviting play with her; she goes nuts.
I’ve tried to ignore it but it hurts too much and I can’t
Otherwise I sometimes grab her collar and try to get her to sit to calm down, but she goes nuts and is lunging and trying to bolt and biting me the *whole* time, and I overall don’t want to rely on that because I worry about hurting her neck. Even if she does eventually chill out if you hold it long enough (loosely).
